


What Could Have Been

by Pfain Ryder (Cat_Moon)



Series: Georgia on my Mind [2]
Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 23:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20397802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Moon/pseuds/Pfain%20Ryder
Summary: It's Sam's turn to face the consequences of his actions, and it may cost him the leap.  He has everything to lose... and everything to gain.  Note: Read "Georgia on my Mind" first.





	What Could Have Been

**Author's Note:**

> Begin in 1993, finished up in 2019, never posted or printed anywhere until now.  
Note: In this series, Sam went back to leaping in as others again after Mirror Image.

Since I started leaping, I'd had plenty of dreams while laying in a stranger's bed. Most of them were either not worth remembering the next day, or I didn't _want_ to.

As far as dreams went, this one rated a definite...12. She was a dark-haired beauty, with eyes the color of the ocean. I could smell her heady perfume, feel the soft slide of her long tresses over my chest. Creamy skin, silken thighs wrapping around my waist as I...

"Hey, Sammy-boy!" a booming voice exploded out of nowhere.

I shot up out of the bed like a missile, I swear I felt the slight graze of ceiling on my head before I landed back in bed. And it was almost a _splash-down_, I can tell you.

I scrambled to switch on the light, clutching at my chest to keep my heart from escaping to join the Indy-500. "Christ!" I said with feeling. "Al, you almost gave me a coronary!"

"How's my ol' pal?!"

I just glared, I think I'd already answered that question. But as I took a good look at him, I realized something was off...big time. Something in his demeanor, something familiar, yet out of place here. "What's going on?" I asked suspiciously. "Why did you show up here in the middle of the night, scaring me half to death?"

"I jus wanted to see how my bud is doin'," Al explained reasonably, peering at me through squinted eyes, lopsided grin on his face.

The switchboard of my nerve-center was struggling to make the connections and relay the needed information to my brain, pulling... Then, a proverbial fist hit me in the stomach and I stared at Al. It was something familiar all right...but it had been so long since I'd seen it, more lifetimes ago than I could count.

"You're drunk!" I accused him with cold certainty.

In perfect answer to my statement, he belched.

It would have been funny...but would-have-beens don't count. Then another thought struck me. "Has something happened?!" I demanded. "Something with the leap?"

"The leap," Al said, as if I'd just reminded him where we were. "What'sa matter with the leap?"

"That's what I'm asking you!" I said, exasperated. This wasn't like Al at all..and it was scaring the hell out of me, worse than his abrupt arrival had. He never got drunk during a leap, at least not since the very beginning. And if he did overindulge during off-hours, he didn't let on to me.

"Y'know your problem?" Al asked me. "Your problem is, you're too straight--whoops," he giggled, for some reason finding it extremely amusing. "I mean, too tight." He chuckled again at his unintentionally lewd remarks.

At least he was clear-headed enough to recognize them.

Al, making _un_-intentional dirty remarks? I revised my previous impression. He was drunk as a skunk.

"Y'know what I mean," Al was saying. "Loosen up, have some fun."

"I want you to tell me what's going on with you," I said quietly, swallowing my fear and hoping a calm approach would get results. Unfortunately, I was still Swiss-cheesed on how I'd handled Al in the days when he was drinking heavily. "Did something happen at the Project?"

"No," he answered, a little too quickly and a little too soberly.

It wasn't the leap going bad, then. Not that it should have been, since I'd just arrived in time for bed. We already had the facts, knew why I was there. It wasn't one of the more earth shattering ones.

I relaxed, taking a deep breath. I didn't have much more information, but enough to get things into better perspective. "Will you talk to me, please?"

Al pulled a very crumpled, beaten-looking candy bar out of his pocket and began unwrapping it. Seeing me watching him, he grinned and held it up. "Got a lil' smooshed," he explained. "Put up a good fight, but I won," he bit into it triumphantly.

A lump of ice the size of Antarctica formed in my stomach, although I wasn't sure where the cold dread came from. "What put up a good fight?" I asked, having the feeling I should know the answer.

"The candy machine," he explained.

_Oh, no..._ "I thought you gave up beating on defenseless vending machines, and came to fight windmills with me?" I said with a catch in my voice.

"I never beat up a vending machine in my life!" Al stated vehemently, spoiling it with a chuckle. "Until now, a' course." He had the air of a man laughing inwardly, at his own private joke.

He seemed awfully close to the edge. I wondered what could have happened so suddenly to undo years of temperance. "Tell me what's going on, Al," I pleaded again, touching my temple with my finger, "In here. Please," I finished.

"Nothin'," Al said, pulling out the hand-link as he finished his candy and threw the wrapper on the floor to disappear from sight. "Absolutely nothing. G'night," he said as the Imaging Chamber door swallowed him up.

I stared at the spot for a long time, trying to make sense of my churning emotions. Something was very wrong, and I didn't know what. Something that was bothering Al enough to affect his performance on the job. There was a time when he didn't need a reason, but now... What if I couldn't get through to him, if he got worse instead of better? Would I be able to rely on him as I always had? I remembered all those things they'd said about him in the beginning, how I was stupid for insisting on an unreliable alcoholic for my project observer, hoping they wouldn't come true.

Then I had a wisp of memory, elusive and vague. Something about the leaps getting harder... This one had seemed like a piece of cake a few hours ago, now I was afraid I was going to find out I'd been operating under a false sense of security. I shouldn't relax my guard. No one knew better than me how the most innocuous circumstances could turn deadly on a dime.

Knowing I wasn't going to get any more sleep that night, I got up and headed to the kitchen to make some coffee.

XXX

I did manage to catch some sleep, but I was up at the crack of dawn. After I was finished in the bathroom I belted a robe around me, then rooted around in the bedroom for clothes. I tried the top drawer first; just as I'd figured, it held underwear... but not the kind of underwear I'd been expecting... What I pulled out was a frilly pair of pink bikini panties.

I searched around in the drawer further, wondering if Dwight had a girlfriend I'd have to deal with. It wasn't a girlfriend, I discovered a moment later, as I also pulled out several Polaroid's of him in the same panties.

"Oh boy...the guy's a cross-dresser," I muttered to myself, resisting the urge to laugh. It really wasn't funny.

With his usual impeccable timing, Al arrived at that moment, regarding the panties I held a moment before speaking. "Not your color, Sam, try powder blue," he quipped; the usual, as if nothing had happened last night.

The familiar retort was almost out of my mouth before I realized what was going on. "Are you okay this morning?" I asked instead, carefully.

"This time of the morning? Who is?" He nonchalantly looked around the room. "But time doesn't wait for Al Calavicci. Instead of being snuggled in my bed, I had an obnoxious computer wake me at an ungodly hour and inform me that I was needed here."

"For what?" I asked, temporarily off balance. I started to wonder if I'd imagined his night visit.

"Because she gets off on being a wise-ass. Nothing's changed, you're still here to get that job for Dwight this afternoon."

"What about...last night?"

"Last night?" Al asked innocently.

_Could it have been a dream? _ I desperately wanted to believe that. "I...I was having a dream, and then you showed up--"

He interrupted me before I got any further. "It must have been _some_ dream. Sorry I 'interrupted' it."

"Are you saying you weren't really there? That it was just a dream?"

"Isn't that what you just told me?"

"I guess..."

"Are you planning on trying those on, or what?" Al asked, looking pointedly to where I still held the undies.

I shoved them back in the drawer. "Is there anything I should know about this guy?"

Al checked the hand-link "Nah. Cross dressers aren't necessarily gay. In fact, many happily married men like to wear their wives clothes on occasion.”

"Why, you know this from _personal_ experience, Al?" I quipped sweetly.

Al looked like he was about to make a come-back, then just smiled. "I'll never tell."

"Perhaps I should ask your..." _Wife. Beth... _ Suddenly I remembered. The previous leap, the bar, talking to Beth and begging her to wait for Al.

"My what?" Al asked, eyes pinning mine.

I cast about frantically for something... "Boyfriend," I finished, trying to sound as if I'd meant the dig from the start and holding my breath.

His eyebrows raised and he made a big production out of checking with Ziggy via the hand-link "Nope, no boyfriend. For me, or Dwight."

I gazed at Al intently, trying to find my answers there. It wasn't something I could ask. By the way, are you still single? If I did I'd have to explain, and I didn't want to do that. Not if he had no idea about what I'd done.

Al cut out shortly after that, saying he had some stuff to do. While I fervently hoped _some stuff _didn't mean drinking, I was relieved that I wouldn't have to deal with him before I knew what I was going to say. I needed time to think.

XXX

Dwight Chambers was a bright young man with lots of potential, but he was the type who needed a push. He'd spent ten years toiling at several non-challenging factory jobs. Now, he had an opportunity to get an entry level position at a good company, working in the mail room. It was nothing he couldn't have handled, but Dwight wasn't a fast learner. He was one of those people who take a while to get the hang of something, but once they do, they know the job inside and out. The fact that he couldn't catch on as quickly as others ate at his self-confidence, until he avoided anything even remotely challenging. The only reason he'd gotten this interview was because his uncle had called in a favor and pressured him into it.

In the original history his self-doubt became a self-fulfilling prophesy, and he didn't get the job. I was there to ace the interview for him. An easy leap.

Luckily, because the personal stuff was enough to deal with.

All I could think about was what might be going on at the Project. I must have changed history _somehow_, with my leap into Beth's house. Al hadn't said one word, and he certainly didn't look any happier. And if his drunken visit the night before wasn't a dream...he _wasn't_ happier.

So what had happened? I had no answers, only questions. I couldn't ask Al, didn't want to bring up a possibly painful subject. I didn't want him to know what I'd done at all, or want Al feeling he owed me.

So what the hell was I supposed to do?

Besides go to the interview.

XXX

I sat in Mr. Billings office, pulling at my collar, sweating, and glancing at my watch every five seconds. Al was supposed to meet me well before the interview, field the questions I'd be asked with answers from Ziggy. But he wasn't there, and I was left squirming and looking like an idiot.

"Am I keeping you from an important appointment, Mr. Chambers?" Billings asked with icy politeness when I'd glanced at my watch yet again.

"Uh, no sir. Sorry." I glanced around surreptitiously for a sign of Al.

"You know, normally I don't even interview anyone without a proper resume', I'm doing this as a favor to Burt. But if I'm boring you..."

"No, sir," I said, meeting his eyes. Looking confident at this point was totally hopeless. Dwight could have done better.

The boss regarded me a moment, then glanced down at the paper in front of him. The application Dwight had filled out last week that I'd never seen. "How would you describe your duties at your last job?" he asked.

"I, well...general factory."

"Can you be a little more specific?"

"Assembly," I bluffed, and crossed my fingers mentally.

"I see. What exactly was the name of your supervisor? I can't quite make out what you've written here."

"His name?" I squeaked, looking around desperately for the hologram. "Well, it's, uh, I had two of them see, and--" I stood up and reached out for the application. "Maybe if I took a look at it I'd know which one you were referring to--"

"I don't think that will be necessary." The death knoll fell with a thud. "I'm afraid you aren't quite what we're looking for at this time."

"But--" One look at his face told me not to bother trying.

"Hey, Sammy-boy!" Al crowed, stumbling through the Imaging Chamber door with a crooked grin on his face. "Wass new?"

It made me sick to my stomach to see him. He was so plastered, I could almost smell the booze.

"Thank you for your time," I told Billings, taking the offered hand. Then he was showing me to the door, and Al had abruptly vanished.

I stormed outside, anger boiling my blood. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to punch Al. If I wasn't able to vent my rage on him, I'd be dangerous. But of course the coward wouldn't show his face to me now...

"Sam--"

I spun on him. Triumph was mine. "What the hell did you do in there?" I demanded, ignoring the passers-by who might see me yelling at thin air. "I lost that job because of you. I might be stuck in this leap for the rest of my life, and it's all your fault, you worthless drunken bum!"

Rather than answer, Al turned away from me, keying the Imaging Chamber door up. As he staggered through the door I was immediately sorry for my harsh words, but I had even bigger worries, as the image of him walking around the Project like that swam before my eyes.

_Oh god, we're in a lot of trouble..._

XXX

Al didn't show up for the rest of the afternoon. I tried to get involved in reading want ads, but my mind was far too distracted. I swallowed a meal without tasting it, then went out onto the balcony of Dwight's apartment to stare up at the stars, think, and hope Al would show up.

I'd driven him away with my insensitivity and cruelty, and I was eaten up with guilt, worry--bordering on panic. The Al I knew would not get drunk like that without a damned good reason....but the Al I knew wouldn't get drunk like _that_ at all, not when I needed him.

Was he still the Al I knew?

The thought gave me a chill of foreboding. I'd changed the timeline, maybe he was no longer the same man I'd called my best friend. Maybe he never had been...

I shoved that thought away. He was still Al, and obviously in a lot of pain.

_What went wrong?! _I demanded, looking up to the heavens. I was supposed to help Al. Get his lost love back for him. It _had_ to work -- I'd given up my chance to go home for it. _He's had enough pain in his life, hasn't he? Why do you always hurt him? Why do __**I**__ always hurt him... _ The stars stared back at me, silent, cold, and unblinking. _ But it was suppose to be different this time. Instead of choosing to go home, I chose to help Al. That was the deal,_ I reminded angrily.

"It just isn't fair!" I yelled out, realizing I was on the verge of tears. Those words, though, they sounded so strangely familiar...

"What isn't fair?" a quiet voice asked.

I spun to see Al standing there, sobered up considerably. He looked very subdued, his shame just barely concealed. Instead of waiting for me to answer, he continued talking. "I'm sorry. I know that don't mean shit, but it was my duty to say it. Ziggy says you can still leap. All you have to do is find Dwight a job where he has a chance at advancement."

"I figured that," I answered, trying to come up with a way to say what I needed to. "I've already been checking the want ads."

"I always told you, you didn't need me around to make it."

Except he'd never said it with quite that tone of voice before. I knew what was coming next. It was like a bad recurring nightmare. I'd played this whole thing before, back in the beginning of our friendship.

"Gooshie can take over as hologram if you want."

“What do _you_ want?" I asked, watching him carefully.

"I'm not sure I know," he said in a tone I couldn't interpret.

"What's going on, Al? I'm your best friend, aren't I? Talk to me."

"There's nothing to say."

His tone was hard then, and I began to wonder if he was really as sorry as I'd imagined--expected.

"I'll tell Gooshie to get ready," he said, pulling the link out of his pocket.

"Wait!" I called in a near-panic at the thought of him leaving me. "You at least owe me an explanation before you go." _Keep him talking,_ the calm part of my brain told me.

"Isn't it obvious? You don't need a drunk for Project Observer, my days are numbered here anyway." There wasn't any guilt in his voice, though. That surprised...and stung.

"In other words, you're giving up and running away to crawl into a bottle. Like you tried to do at Starbright."

"There was _nothing_ wrong with my performance at Starbright, Sam," Al told me, in deadly earnest.

Something in his tone was like a slap of truth in the face. _Timeline changed... _ I sat down heavily, suddenly realizing that I'd changed my own past, my history with Al, as well as Al's. When making amends to assuage my guilt, I hadn't given a thought to the possible repercussions.

And now, as if I'd been Swiss-cheesed again, I didn't have a clue about the life I'd left.

"You didn't beat up a vending machine at Starbright." I didn't have to ask anymore, I knew.

Al shook his head. "There's a lot of things I didn't do."

"Was Beth waiting for you?" I asked the question I'd been afraid of hearing the answer to.

"You made sure of that, didn't you?"

I finally recognized what that elusive something in his voice was -- anger. I bristled at the implied reproach. I couldn't believe he was actually angry with me, after I'd sacrificed for him.

"I did it for you!" I answered hotly, as we faced off.

"Did you ask _me_ what I wanted before you arbitrarily went about changing my whole past? Let me make my own decisions?"

"You didn't let me make _my_ own decisions, when I was in Vietnam with Tom," I tossed at him like a hand grenade.

"That was _my_ decision," Al barked in his admiral voice. "I was the one in that cage, not you. Just because you've made a career out of meddling in other people's lives, you think you can meddle in mine!"

"I only wanted you to be happy!" I cried. "I was always doing things for me, I wanted to do something for _you_! Is that so wrong?!"

Instead of answering, he turned away.

"What happened?" I whispered. "With Beth?"

"Beth was here," Al said. "Until three days ago when she told me she was in love with someone else and left." He faced me again, mixture of anger and understanding in his expression. "It could be worse, at least I remember the other timeline, too. I suppose it would hurt more, if I didn't."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, feeling worse with every damning answer.

"I suppose now that our daughters are all grown and gone, she felt free to leave."

"Daughters?" I whispered, stricken.

"Four."

"I'm..."

"Sorry? I'm not the only one who's got a surprise waiting for him. It was Donna that Beth ran off with."

As soon as Al said her name, the memory exploded on me, filling that hole in my memory with sickening fullness. Donna. My wife. The woman I married. _The woman I deserted by jumping into the Accelerator_, the traitorous part of my mind supplied.

_It's just not fair..._

"I don't understand..." I did of course, I just hoped saying so would make it true.

"Get with the 21st century, pal. They'd been having an affair for years. We used to be pleased that the wives got along so well," Al snorted.

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," I said in a small voice.

"Grow up," he said, not unkindly.

"No, you don't understand. I was trying to make it up to you for the way I've treated you all these years. You wanted Beth back so badly, and I wouldn't help you. If I'd asked first, would you have really said no?" I pinned him with a challenging look.

"What was the alternative?" Al asked with an expression that wouldn't let me deny it.

"You know?" No, Al couldn't be aware of the deal I'd made, could he?

Al just gazed at me levelly. It was true, he _knew_ what my choices had been. And even though I gave up my chance to go home, things weren't okay. In fact, everything was happening the same way it had originally, only later. Beth leaving, the drinking...even the vending machine massacre. Did I gain yesterday's happiness at the expense of today's?

_Some things just weren't meant to be..._

I threw my head up. "No! That's cheating!" I yelled to the sky. "Do you hear me?!"

"Sam--"

"I gave up my home for you--so you could have the woman you love back. It's not fair..." I insisted, like a child crying against the dark.

"I love _you_, you asshole."

My head snapped around to look at him in astonishment.

"What I wanted most, had you asked me, was for you to come home. You could have made up for all of that," Al said with quiet wistfulness. "_You_ could have made me happy."

I shook my head in denial, trying to block out the painful words.

"If you'd wanted to try."

Soothing silence followed, and I was grateful. Until I looked up to find him gone. Then, emptiness took its place.

_Could have been so beautiful, could have been so right, you could have been my lover, on a dark and lonely night...* _the girl on the radio in the other room sang.

Only could-have-beens didn't count any more.

XXX

I sat over breakfast the next morning, bleary-eyed and definitely morose. I recognized the signs with only mild interest. I was wrung out, fed up, and leached of any caring about the leap I was in--or any of them, any more. Crisis of faith, I guess you could say. I felt betrayed by the force I'd trusted in through the years of leaping. The one that I'd firmly believed, in the end, would never let me down, even as I was being strapped into an electric chair. He'd let me down, and we'd both let Al down.

And I just didn't care about anything anymore.

When I heard the sound of the Imaging Chamber door, I realized that wasn't quite true. I felt relief as I saw Al standing there. I'd half expected to see Gooshie.

I looked at Al almost shyly. He wasn't drunk, and he even looked almost okay. When he spoke I knew why. He was going to pretend none of it ever happened.

"Good morning Sam. Sleep well?"

"Not really." Let him, but I wasn't playing.

"Listen, Ziggy's located a great job opportunity. It's with a factory that Dwight worked for before, so if you call the hiring manager, you should be able to get an interview. It's as head of the shipping department. Something Dwight knows about, so he should feel more comfortable. Ziggy says this is even better than the other one. We just didn't think of it before because Dwight would have never had the initiative to call this guy up and inquire. Of course they never figured him for the type with enough confidence to be a leader, but with you there to impress them, it's in the bag." He finally wound down, shut up and waited for me...for me to make the appropriate comments, I guess.

"Fine." Not that I really cared about the leap, but it would be nice to get out of this place where my life had been shattered. "Will you be my hologram on the next leap?" I asked, staring into my cereal and vaguely wondering why I was giving up so easily.

"I don't know," Al said honestly.

I stirred my corn flakes absently, nodding.

Maybe I'd put the poor guy through enough, and it was time for me to leave him alone and let him make his own decisions. "Just... take care of yourself, please?" I managed to keep my voice steady.

"I'm trying. The number's 555-6772. Ask for Mr. Jones, and tell him you heard he has an opening, you'd like to apply for it. I'll be back later," Al said and punched up his doorway. Then he paused and turned back. "Sam?" He waited until I looked up at him before continuing. "If things had turned out differently...would you have been willing to try?" he asked quietly.

A shiver ran through my frame, but I didn't turn away. _I'd do anything to make you happy. _ But I couldn't say that, even if he would have believed me. They were just cheap and empty words now.

_Could-have-beens._

"Yes," I told him.

XX

When I called Mr. Jones, he seemed genuinely glad to hear from Dwight, and slightly impressed with his forward, confident manner. Funny, because I was beginning to feel like Dwight. In my own life, I wasn't feeling particularly self-assured.

I managed to talk Jones into giving me fifteen minutes that very afternoon, the only time he'd have to fit me in between now and the following week. I knew if I was in the leap that long I'd go crazy, I longed for that between-leap void where I wouldn't have to think. So I thanked him, hung up, and got dressed for success.

By the time I knocked on the door of the office, I had a headache the size of Montana. Putting it down to stress, I'd swallowed two Ibuprofen and gone on with things as planned. Now, the feeling had spread to my stomach, a churning queasiness.

Unfortunately, I didn't think the severe case of nerves had come from the impending interview. Even though Al hadn't shown up yet, I wasn't worried in the least.

Because I didn't really care.

About the job, that is; I very much cared about whether I'd see Al again.

"Come in," a voice beckoned.

I opened the door and stepped inside. Jones was sitting at his desk, writing something on a piece of paper. He smiled when he saw me and rose. "Dwight. It's good to see you again."

"You too, Mr. Jones," I said, stepping forward to shake his hand.

The moment our hands touched, I got yet another surprise. It was a leap for them.

It wasn't Jones standing there any longer. It was Al Calavicci.

"Al?" All I could do was stare, still holding onto his hand. "Al?!" He smiled slightly. "What are you doing here?"

"The situation at the Project has...well, it's changed. Gooshie's taken over the job of Observer now -- and congratulations 'Dwight', you've got the job."

He grasped the hand I'd just taken back, and we leaped out.

Together.

**the end**

8/27/93

**Author's Note:**

> *Tiffany, “Could've Been.”  
I plan to do at least one more story in this 'Universe,' and yes, Sam and Al will be leaping together.


End file.
